Property of the East India Trading Company
by domino.dice
Summary: On the finding of a certain compass, the rise of a certain ship, the deal with a certain denizen, and the making of a certain pirate.


Tentative title... let me know if it should or shouldn't be changed.

Guess what folks? It's Pirate Time. I haven't written anything in aaaages, but I figure that years of role-playing Jack gives me the right to write something from his point of view. The dreaded prequel. Special thanks to Sam Rockwell, building bridges between the stars.

Ooh, and let me know which line's your favorite. I love to know that stuff XD

oOo

Overall, it had been a fantastic couple of days. In no good way however; they had not been fantastic in the way that, say, a fantastically rich relative would be if he decided that you were his favorite nephew, then he decided to die. No, they were fantastic in the same way that falling off a roof would be fantastic if you smashed into an awning and landed in a barrel of undesirable fish parts, and if the fish parts were really donkey offal. That was how fantastic those couple of days had been, and they ended with a nice, easy finish in the brig of a pirate galleon that had all the pleasantries of... well, a pirate's brig. It was a closet made of rust and mildew and soggy boards. Sounds simple to break out of, and it is, but the main problem in such circumstances would be the dozens of sailors who feel I should stay in there even if it had been made of egg yolk. The lock is only there to make a loud sound when you break free, and alert all on board that their prisoner is now fair game.

Before you ask what I've done this time, consider for the moment that I may have, for once, perhaps done nothing at all wrong. In fact, try to comprehend the following situation- a merchant on his way to pick up a crucial shipment of utmost importance is intercepted by an unpleasant lot of sea-faring bandit scoundrels who believe that said merchant already had said shipment, and are Most Seriously Displeased to discover that they are wrong in every respect.

'Merchant? When did merchants come into it?' I hear you cry. Well I, Captain Jack Sparrow, corsair extraordinaire, was once a merchant.

Well, you ask a silly question, you get a silly answer. What, do you think we're all pirates from the get-go? Pirates aren't interested in children, not even as potential pirates. There's more important things to do. Besides, if one is short a hand or two, it's faster to press gang than to dilly about with one woman for nine months, and some child for however many years more. Sailors raise sailor children on occasion, but pirates don't raise children of any kind. Coincidences do happen sometimes if somebody's whelp is left behind, but that's about as far as it gets. Happy little boys of law may go so far as to play pirate but these are usually depraved or demented in some way. Few truly aspire to be criminal.

That said, my merchant-ness still baffles and astounds, especially when taken in union with who it was that employed me as a merchant in the first place. I have what some would call a 'personal vendetta' with the East India Trading Company. Ironic that I used to work for them? No, not in the slightest. It is from this employment that the vendetta came. Progression, not irony, though one is often mistaken for the other. This particular progression of events contributed greatly to my particular distaste for regulation. Rules meant to be broken and all that.

But we can explain my motives for piracy later. Right now we go back to what made the days prior my capture so fantastic.

To provide some backstory on this, here's another situation for you to examine. You're a sailor just voted captain of your very own ship. The ship itself is fresh off the drydocks, not a single barnacle has yet touched her hull. Of course, you're going to take whatever job comes your way first, just to get her out there.

'You realize how high risk this is?'

'Huh?'

'That means it's dangerous.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Pirates and privateers and Spain--'

'Oh my. Is that all?'

'Cargo this valuable makes for a journey plagued by all sor--'

'So I get to shoot things? Lots of things?'

Of course, in such a situation, that is exactly what would be said no matter who you were. In your excitement, you would completely ignore the words, 'only a schooner to accompany you', and 'we can only stock you with a half-keg of powder and a single brass monkey', and 'my daughter will sing at your funeral'. Alright, so perhaps the bit about somebody's daughter will get through, but not the part after it. The part about the funeral.

So off you go expecting a good fight and a lass waiting for your return and overall just a good first run.

Depending on how observant you are, the next part may or may not occur. Your orders, all signed and official, bear a seal that doesn't match with your usual assignment officer. Your assignment officer had no reason to be absent. He handed you the papers. You knew your orders and as such had no reason to look at them, and presumably your assignment officer had no reason to look at them after he had written, signed and sealed them. Handing them over required no actual examination. At any rate, two days out you feel the need to boast about how you, and only you, get to know exactly what those orders are and that they're written in a special sealed envelope to be opened only by special little you. But wait a moment, that's not the proper seal, so you turn right around like a good little sailor to return them because clearly this particular envelope is not for special little you.

From this point on, all misfortune resulting from the envelope in question can be blamed on the stiff-upper-lipped upper-yardman ashore that assured you that they were your orders, even opened it and showed you they were, and informs you that the seal could only be that of a stand-in for your AO because otherwise it would be his seal, and at any rate, he tore the thing open so now you can't tell anyway. Nothing to fret over, _quod ego dico_.

Well, best to learn on your first time out that, firstly, you shouldn't be so gullible all the time, secondly that you should always trust yourself first, and most importantly that tampered seals should be taken as red that they've been intercepted. These are all lessons that you won't learn until after you're sent back on your way, and misfortune occurs.

By now you must realize that I had taken on this questionable task as the newly elected captain of the ship heralded as the East India Company's pride and joy. She was the _Wicked Wench_. Such a pretty thing.

You must also have realized by now that these are the events as they unfolded before me. My personal accounts are frequently and unfairly accused of being... less than true. I like to see them as being more than true, but everything described here is fact.

Very few green captains would have turned back around at the sight of someone else's sigil. The fact that I did indicates how not totally incompetent I am, but also made things rather a bit difficult for me in the days to come. Because I had turned around, I was set back some days. The _Wench_ was fast though, one of the fastest ships in the Atlantic. We made up for some time, but not all of it of course. One day away from our goal and one day behind is where I take this narration up to proper speed. A great deal of things can be decided in a single day. This is a trend I've seen often. Keep in mind, the captain that hadn't turned back would still be on time and on track.

Keep that in mind.


End file.
